Movie Review: The Spectacular Now

I haven't hated a movie in a long time. The Spectacular Now breaks this streak. As much as I disliked The Bling Ring, at least Sofia Coppola knows how to maneuver a fucking camera. The same can't be said for The Craptacular Now's director James Ponsoldt.

Where to begin? Well, like Public Enemy said, "Don't Believe The Hype." I guess that was my first problem. I figured a movie that both friends and critics raved about (with an astonishing 93% on Rotten Tomatoes! WTF?) must be good. Well fuck me for assuming. Had I gone into this screening blind, having only seen the trailer earlier this summer, I might have walked out merely disappointed...instead of fucking livid.

So what's up with this film? Why did The Spectacular Now rub me so raw? Well, the script is hokey (boring, contrived, lazy), the acting is bad (Characters? No. Caricatures? Yes.) and the direction is flat. Like, Kevin Smith "shooting two people in front of a wall talking," flat. I can handle lame dialogue/plot. I can tolerate ham-fisted performances, but if that's the case then at least give me something to look at dude. When a film drops the ball on all three levels, that's when I shut down and have Episode I flashbacks.

Smarmy Douche: The Movie.

The Spectacular Now follows an unlikeable punk named Sutter as he teeters on the brink of graduating high school and faces the grim realities of adulthood. Yeah, it's one of those movies. Only here, the protagonist is a smarmy douche who is so thoroughly unlikable I actually wished bodily harm upon his character. Sutter is a teenage alcoholic from a broken home who masks his inner pains with a court jester facade. He's supposed to be the fast talking, life of the party who woos the ladies and skates through life a la Ferris Bueller or Zack Morris but instead, he comes across as a sloppy John Cusack. He speaks in cliches and is more used car salesman than high school student. After breaking up with his girlfriend, Sutter meets Aimee, the only likable/believable human in the enter film. She's the shy, maidenly bookworm who shows Sutter that it's possible to breathe oxygen without acting like a cliched douche all the time. Props to actress Shailene Woodley for being this films only saving grace. Even with such a horrible script, she did her best. The rest of the cast? Lifetime movie of the week territory.

Don't get me wrong, it is possible to enjoy a film with unlikeable characters. Pain & Gain and Spring Breakers both centered on psychotic narcissists but were entertaining films because they didn't try to force the audience to relate to their asshole protagonists. Like I said before, if the plot and characters are fucked, you better have some sick visual style to win the viewer over with. Alas, The Spectacular Now fails here. Hardcore. I know this is a mega low budget indie film, but with today's technology, there is no excuse for such shoddy imagery on screen. The whole film just looks dark and dingy. Even Mud which takes place in a fucking swamp looked more pristine. I understand not every film can look as gorgeous as The Place Beyond The Pines, but if you want us to sympathize with a smarmy douche like Sutter, aka: the drunk driving captain of the world, how about some thought provoking/haunting shots like THIS huh?

So that's that. The Spectacular Now: the most infuriating movie of the summer. Remember what Chuck D said about hype? He was referring to this trailer.

Movie Review: Spring Breakers

Spring Breakers is director Harmony Korine's declaration of war on the senses. It's ninety minutes of stimulation overload. The film offers relentless visual and sonic bombardment meant to replicate, and ridicule the gilded ADHD elements of modern American youth culture. This is not your conventional bikini clad exploitation film by any means.

The film centers around a quartet of young college girls aching to escape the monotony of their everyday lives (drinking, smoking, partying). After robbing a diner to fund their expedition, the girls head down to Florida, the one place where they can let their hair down and enjoy the freedoms of Spring Break (where they can drink, smoke and party, naturally). The girls, played by Vanessa Hudgens, Ashely Benson, Selena Gomez and the director's wife, Rachel Korine, end up in trouble with the law after they arrive at their beach front party destination. Luckily for them, a charismatic drug dealer/rapper/ all around hustler named Alien comes to their rescue...only to drag them further down the path of debauchery and mayhem. James Franco's performance as Alien is the absolute highlight of the film. In a movie rife with gratuitous amounts of T&A (including Hudgens and Benson in a partially underwater threesome), that's saying something. His take on Alien is both equal parts endearing and repulsive at the same time.

Spring Break Forever...

 I think Franco shines so well in this film because he's in on the joke. He and director Harmony Korine appear to exist on the same wave length. A pair of anti-establishment rabble rousers who enjoy biting the corporate hand that feeds them. Stunt cast the hottest Disney teen idols in roles that will surely shock/alienate their fan base. Craft a film that embraces the tenets of the vapid youth culture it seeks to lampoon. On the surface, Spring Breakers is a flawed film. It's character's are one dimensional and the plot is ridiculous. But that's the point.

Korine's Disney Princess bikini flick is really an experimental art house film. Through the pummeling use of repetition, recycling the same bits of audio and visual segments onscreen the way a DJ might loop a beat, Korine's Spring Breakers is more akin to an electronic dance song than a traditional film.  Hence all the Britney Spears love. This is why Spring Breakers is an astonishing success. The movies plays out like a MDNA fever dream, something this generation of American youths, who've been raised on Twitter, YouTube and Grand Theft Auto, are, for better or worse, all too familiar with.





BONUS VIDEOS:
Director Harmony Korine explains the sick, sad and visually astounding world of Spring Breakers. Warning: NSFW
Part 1-
Part 2-

Awesome Photo (8)

The cast of Spring Breakers aka: the best film of 2013. Selena Gomez & Vanessa Hudgens together = Disney Jailbait Princess Overload.

More amazing/drool inducing photos from the shoot can be found HERE.